{"id":4898,"date":"2013-12-16T01:09:19","date_gmt":"2013-12-16T09:09:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/?p=4898"},"modified":"2013-12-16T14:49:35","modified_gmt":"2013-12-16T22:49:35","slug":"interior-trim-refinishing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/2013\/12\/interior-trim-refinishing\/","title":{"rendered":"Interior Trim Refinishing"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Dash Project<\/a> was essentially a segue into a comprehensive interior overhaul. Since I had to remove the majority of the trim whilst working on the dash, I decided to go one step further and strip down each of the individual trim pieces. I felt that the black plastics were getting bland and decided to spice things up by having them repainted. <\/p>\n

Initially, the goal was to administer a subtle change: I wanted to replicate the Spirit-R trim panels, which were a charcoal grey color. <\/p>\n

\"2002_Mazda_RX7SpiritR3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

To my knowledge, the Spirit-Rs feature a “soft feeling” paint on their trim pieces. This lead me to discover the Alsa line of SoftTouch<\/a> paint, which seemed perfect for this application. Repainting a few plastic pieces appeared to be a trivial task at first glance, but by the series of events to follow, this was one of the most grueling and lengthy exercises I’ve encountered. To provide perception, I first dropped off the pieces to a local body shop (who performed a small job on my old Miata<\/a> prior) over 3 months ago…<\/p>\n

I shared pictures of the Spirit R interior and explained my desired color, a matte, OEM-like charcoal grey. A kit of the Alsa SoftTouch was then ordered. In the process of shooting, the SoftTouch paint wasn’t mixed properly and a few of the pieces would not dry properly. This meant a special paint remover, one that works with plastics, had to be ordered to strip everything down again for another reshoot. Almost 4 weeks later, they were finally ready for pick up.<\/p>\n

Immediately upon my arrival to the body shop, I saw that the grey color was too light of a shade. I ended up paying for the job twice in order to redo them, and I also had to buy another kit of the SoftTouch paint (over $200 for just materials) because the first kit was expended. Fast forward to another 3 weeks of waiting for the SoftTouch to arrive, stripping the paint off again, and reshooting… the color ends up being too dark this time. At this point, I just took all the panels back home so I could have time and space to think about the next move.<\/p>\n

I knew I still wasn’t happy with the results, even though so much time had been lost. I looked into other options, wrapping the pieces in vinyl came up as an idea. In the end, I opted for another repaint – with the exception of ditching the Alsa paint. I was going to stick to normal paint in a smooth, glossy, 2-stage finish. I also took the pieces to a different body shop this time around. <\/p>\n

For the sake of brevity, I’ll keep this next section brief. From having the paint react poorly with the Alsa undercoat to me being unhappy with bumps and non-smooth areas, these pieces were reshot 4-5 times each at body shop #2. Although I required the work to be expedited, given the circumstances, this took another 3 weeks to complete.<\/p>\n

Now I finally have the pieces back in my possession and to my satisfaction. With the exception of the gauge cluster surround – I still discovered minor blemishes in its finish and they are repainting it once more. Ultimately, the color I chose to go with was a nice, metallic grey. Porsche “Meteor Grey”, to be exact. I think it looks stunning and the contrast it provides against the black interior helps to elevate the plastics’ perceived quality. <\/p>\n

Pictured below are the shifter surround and climate control panel, all reassembled:
\n\"interiorpaint\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

And the door panels reinstalled:
\n\"driverdoor\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"gunmetal\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Fingers crossed that once I am able to get the gauge surround back, I can finally button up the interior and just start driving.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Dash Project was essentially a segue into a comprehensive interior overhaul. Since I had to remove the majority of the trim whilst working on the dash, I decided to go one step further and strip down each of the individual trim pieces. I felt that the black plastics were getting bland and decided to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4899,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11,27],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4898"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4898"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4898\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5060,"href":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4898\/revisions\/5060"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}